"We go with Jesus through His suffering and death year-over-year" Judica 2025

06. April 2025

Judica

John 8:46-59

 Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” Then they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by (Jn 8:58–59).

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

Jesus has been doing extraordinary things for His people. He healed the paralytic who lay beside the pool of Bethesda with a word, no angel to stir the waters needed anymore. He fed five thousand in the wilderness from the five barley loaves and two fish at His Word, giving such abundance from so little that there were twelve baskets of crumbs from the Master’s table left over. He freed the woman caught in adultery from her guilt, shame, and lust by a forgiving word. He healed the man born blind with a word attached to a poultice of spit and dust.

And how did the religious respond? With disappointment, then anger, vitriol, and ultimately hatred, leading to His suffering and death. How could such good news of hungry bellies fed, sickness healed, and sins forgiven be so offensive?

After the paralytic was healed, the Scriptures record: “The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath” (Jn 5:15–16). After the five thousand were fed, the Scriptures record, “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more” (Jn 6:66). After Jesus refuses to condemn the adulterous woman, “Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last” (Jn 8:9). After the man born blind was healed, we hear that “the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue” (Jn 9:22).

There’s something wrong with Jesus. But it’s not what He’s doing, except that gets Him attention. And it’s not when He’s doing it, although the Pharisees are using the letter of the law on the Sabbath day to convict Jesus. No, the religious problem with Jesus is what He is saying. Between each of these momentous signs in John’s Gospel is a sermon from Jesus. And many, especially the Moses lawyers, hate His sermons. And if you hate Jesus’ sermons, you will hate Jesus. First, you ignore Him, then you sour His relationship with others, then you seek to silence Him, and finally, you’ll try to kill Him.

This is nothing new. It happened with the prophets, and it happened with the Apostles, and now it happens with Christ’s preachers. We could do impressive things and meet targets for growth year-over-year, and nobody will complain. We could increase our wealth and show a fantastic balance sheet that exceeds our neighbors, and everyone would be happy. We could add “ministries” for every demographic, investing time, talent, and treasure, and we’d be called a success. Heal the sick, cure blindness, feed five thousand, set people free from their passions, or dare to even raise the dead, and we’ll have people flocking to us.

But preach Christ Jesus as He is preached in the Bible, and the whole thing could go up in smoke, just on a Friday afternoon from noon to three, or like Jerusalem in Anno Domini 70. Dare to confess that Jesus is the only Way, Truth, and Life, and you may be rejected. Dare to preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and you may be thrown in jail for hate speech. Dare to confess faith in Christ alone for resurrection and life, and they may just want to kill you. As He says to His preachers, “He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me” (Luke 10:16). That’s why “they took up stones to throw at Him.” What do those who reject Jesus do? Ultimately, they have to kill Him.

We don’t need to rehearse again here all the things Jesus has said that are so offensive to our sinful flesh. We’ve been reading through John’s Gospel in our daily prayers. If you have followed along these last weeks, you’ve seen that repeated pattern. Jesus does an amazingly great thing. Yes! And then He teaches them, and they reject Him, make Him seem toxic to others, then try to silence Him, and now finally are ready to kill Him. At every turn, Jesus is giving absolution to everyone, pleading for mercy in repentance. And He is preaching law for the accusation and conviction of those comfortable and content with their sins. He’s turning the whole world away from their narcissism and worship of this world’s demons so that they’re faced up to Him for forgiveness, life, and salvation.

This preaching is assertive, aggressive, and even violent to the Old Adam. Nobody wants their sin exposed, their blind spots exposed, their secrets revealed. Jesus preaches the law lawfully, and all are naked and afraid. No one is exempt, not His disciples, those in the synagogues, Gentiles on the margins, or civil rulers in the Praetorium.

But those who take the most offense are the Pharisees, who have a neat, tidy, and well-oiled religious order. Their religion makes complete sense, with laws and regulations to keep things moving along, but never crucifying the old Adam or raising anyone to new life in Christ. As Paul says, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). We hold on tightly to what we think God wants, but what we really want ourselves to be true. We build institutions, rulesets, and stories to make sense of things but never ask if they’re good, beautiful, or even true.

The most wondrous and terrifying idolaters are the ones with the illusion of godliness but deny the Spirit (2 Tim 3:5). Paul warns us of those false teachers, “For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Ti 3:6–7). Jesus describes them as devouring widow’s houses. Offensive to the old man, yes! But all idolatry, sin, and unbelief must be revealed, no matter how unpleasant, so that the Gospel be proclaimed, sins are forgiven, and healing and resurrection begin.

Imagine Jesus preached to you the way He preached to His countrymen on this day. Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me” (Jn 8:42–45).

And what if Jesus has a hard sermon for you? Are you going to ignore Him, pollute His relationship with others with lies, try to muzzle Him, or even try to have Him murdered? Or in faith, will you listen to Him, speak well of Him before your neighbors, encourage Him to keep talking, and hold fast to Him? What if sticking with Jesus means finally being honest about your sins and watching all your idols turn to blood and ashes? What if it hurts to stick with Jesus, even suffering rejection, pain, and loss, and maybe you, too, get crucified? This is why we go with Jesus through His suffering and death year-over-year during this Passiontide, learning again what it means to be a disciple.

Because the Christian life is one of daily dying to self and rising again to Christ, Jesus’s preaching against the sinner is painful, harsh, and offensive. But it is true and good because it works faith in Christ and this confession, “Brothers, what must we do to be saved?” God willing, even that was said among some of those Pharisees on the day of Pentecost. And as Jesus declares, “Go and sin no more,” the Apostolic church responds to those in whom the Spirit works repentance, “Believe and be baptized every one of you for the forgiveness of sins. This gift is for you and your children and those far off, as many as our Lord God will call.” Your sins are forgiven in Jesus' name! Go and sin no more.

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School - Sherman Center
Random Lake, Wisconsin